amsterdam

A couple months ago i came upon open call for VR Days Europe 2017 volunteers. This kind of events gather many people all around the world from the industry and developers as well as the speakers. It is a great place to meet people and see what is going on in the industry. I applied to the open call and i was selected.

First day started in DeLaMar Theater with an opening speech by Zilah Watson from BBC then continued with conferences of the speakers. Due to i had no shift in the first day, i listened all the speakers and it was really valuable resource for me.

Martin de Ronde from Forcefield talked about his predictions of the second rise of the VR and the similarities of its current situation and mobile games in 2007 according to his observations since then. Leen Segers explained the business side of the industry. Jason Toff from Google, showed some of the first prototypes of google’s VR projects and explained how did they used the prototypes to develop a stable version of their project. He pointed out mostly spending a dedicated time for prototyping, sketching ideas, brainstorming, sharing before being ready and letting people test the prototypes oftenly. Tenderclaws, showed some examples of their project and talked about creating the interaction in VR. Yitian Han explained the current situation of VR Cinema industry in China. Philip Rosedale from High Fidelity made a live VR performance of their massive online multiplayer videogame, Second life. Jeff Burton from Woodside Creek shared his previous experiences as an ex Electronic Arts employee.

So it was an very busy day 🙂

Next day i arrived to the construction of the exhibition place. It was 7 in the morning.

Exhibition hall is completely empty.

In a few hours the hall is getting ready.

This is the hall i actually worked 2 days. It is called Church of VR. I dont know why they named this place as church. Fun fact: I was the only one turkish or from muslim country to work in the church. It was fun though. We had around 15 VR experience and several movies to show. Some of them was really cool. “Gloomy Eyes” and “Chocolate” are my favourites. Visitors also liked the experiences. Their feedbacks were very positive.

This is the choir area. Visitors experienced VR movies with Gear VR. It was like a place from the future. People was looking different places in same movie. I understood the personal space that is offered by virtual reality again. Persoanl space was created with cinema curtain for above a century. But VR will increase it to a upper dimention.

Nice marketing 🙂 Sadly and surprisingly all the beverage and food was on sale. Including coffee and tea. This is the only summit i went and pay for them. Well i actually didnt pay anything because of i rejected to pay. So i bought what i need from markets.

We had a boat which worked between Central station and Exhibition hall (Kromhouthal). I came across it by chance. It was written nowhere in the papers i had. It is a cool thing.

PSVR stand. First time i have tried the PSVR. It was really comfortable. Screen resolution is same as oculus and vive. But the trackers sucks. Or maybe controllers, i dont know. They told me that trackers are interfereing with the others. It makes sense.

Pimax 8k VR headset is something you cant find oftenly. I waited a very long line to try it. It absolutely worth. Resolution is great. Tracking is not worse than Vive. They look very same. Device has a wider screen, so you dont see the end of the screen horizontally as well as vertically. I saw 2 seam lines in middle right and middle left side of the screen. It feels like they connected 3 screens in headset. After all, great device.

This one is the craziest experience i have ever seen. You actually jump in a pool with VR headset and a snorkel to swim with dolphins.